High School Treachery | ✓

19 | See You

She doesn't speed, she's actually extremely cautious. She's just so jittery behind the wheel. If I had to take a guess as to why, I'd say it's because she didn't actually get her license on her own. I'm sure Mr. Carrington has enough authority to simply buy his new child a license as if it's fucking grocery shopping.

My mouth goes dry—probably from talking so much shit about Malia, even if it's only in my mind.

I walk further down, trying to remember where the juice cart we passed earlier was. Malia said they're littered all over this mall, so there should be one somewhere here. I don't want to venture too far from my cousin, especially in this big ass mall.

The last thing we need is to play our own version of Where's Waldo trying to find each other.

A smile comes to my face when I spot the sign for one of them, and that smile only grows brighter when I spot Elijah behind it.

He's wearing an orange apron that has a small smiling orange in the right corner with Crushed Oranges by it, showing off the logo and name of the juice cart.

"Hey," I say as I walk closer, till I'm standing in front of his cash register.

"Lyndon, hey," he says while placing a hand to the back of his head.

"I didn't know you work here."

I watch as his hand drops to his side, then quickly moves into his pocket, before finally settling back at his side, fingers toying with the ends of his apron.

"For how long?" I add on, realizing he's not speaking. In his defense, I didn't give him much to respond too.

"I have been crushing oranges for a little over a year now," he says while pointing to the oranges lined up in the display case next to him.

"These drinks are made fresh?" I ask with enthusiasm in my voice.

"Are you implying you've never had a drink from Crushed Oranges before?"

"I gotta say, the name never sounded too appealing to me," I say while shaking my head and trying to fight off a small smile.

Elijah sucks his teeth with fake disappointment. "Shame on you. Judging a book by it's cover."

My eyes go to the cashier on the other side of the cart, handing a drink over to her customer. "The drink doesn't look appealing, either."

An offended gasp comes from Elijah, as he brings a hand to his chest, fighting off a smile but failing. "How dare you insult my livelihood."

"Change my mind," I say while shrugging my shoulders.

"Which drink would you like, m'am?" He asks with what I'm assuming is his professional voice.

I scan the menu quickly, before deciding, "I'll take whichever drink you think is the best, sir."

Elijah nods and moves to begin making it, wiping imaginary sweat from his forehead as if this drink will make or break his juicing career.

The laugh I let out at his antics fades when I feel my phone vibrating. I'm ready to scream, thinking it's my mother already harassing me for details, seeing as she was so excited when I told her I was going out with Malia this morning.

Instead, I see Dude on my screen. My eyes widen. I haven't spoken to Jalen since... well, since I finally got the kiss I've been pretending I didn't want all this time.

But the kiss doesn't erase everything else that happened before and after it.

Everything with Cortney, Malia, David, and Daniel has been swirling around nonstop in my mind all fucking night. I can't pretend none of it happened. Even if the cryptic warnings, overly extravagant parties, and shady antics aren't his fault, they're all related to him.